Bloomsbury predicts 2011 to be the year of the e-book
28 Feb 2011
Publisher says e-book sales are on the rise
Bloomsbury is predicting 2011 will be the year of the e-book as digital publishing continues to grow in popularity.
The publishing group made the prediction after announcing a four per cent rise in 2010 revenues to £90.7m.
The company, which publishes the Harry Potter series, said that in America fiction e-book sales are now estimated to account for around 15 per cent of total sales.
This was illustrated by the success of the 2010 Man Booker Prize winner, where 42 per cent of US sales of Howard Jacobson's The Finkler Question were electronic.
E-book revenues for the group grew more than 18-fold in 2010 from $131,000 in 2009 to $2.3m.
Chief executive Nigel Newton said: "Bloomsbury had an excellent year, with a number of bestselling titles and particularly buoyant sales in the final quarter.
"We are also benefitting from our strong position in digital publishing, which continues to experience exciting and unprecedented growth.
"With sales of digital devices such as the Kindle, Nook and iPad growing rapidly, 2011 will clearly be the year of the e-book. We believe that digital publishing creates huge opportunities for Bloomsbury and its authors."
The company, which published nearly 1,800 e-books last year, highlighted online booksellers as a reason for being optimistic.
It said that 40 per cent of total sales of Amazon's new bestsellers are in e-book format.
According to Amazon, more than 8m Kindles sold last year, with more than 5m during the Christmas period. Apple has reported more than 7m iPads sold in the fourth quarter of 2010.
ISBN: 9780747554561
By Simon Harrison
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